Foxy, I'm the first to admit that Abbotts success was largely due to labors failures, rather than his ability. Besides, I think any leader could have taken power away from the last labor government.

The real challenge labor faced was to show themselves as a 'new labor' ome that listened to the people, rather than the faceless men.

In my view they failed their first test when they ignored their very own faithful and went against their supporters wishes by allowing the faceless men, to yet again dictate who would lead the party.

They have also failed as they have been caughtout by the people to some degree, as their claim of 'we have created almost one million jobs' when what they should have said was, we have bought tens of thousands of jobs by subsidizing the car industry, at times to the tune of $1000 per week, per worker.

So if you take away the heavily subsidized jobs, then add to this the number of 457 visas they issued, one has to wonder if the really created any jobs at all.

So that brings us to the question of, what did they do with our $400 odd billion dollars?

I'm sorry Foxy, but they have been caught out.

Poor Bob must be holding his head in shame right about now, as in my view he was the best we ever had, in my time.

The race to the bottom continues.

could go up so much in 15 years I still wouldn't have believed it.
hasbeen,
Yep, unbelieveable alright. That's the money market for you, artificial value with real Dollars.
It'll burst soon once Fifo comes to a halt.

Dear rehctub,

Thank You again for your well reasoned response.
I don't pretend to have all the answers. But I
certainly am sick and tired of the blame and
finger-pointing that so often pervades our
discussions whenever politics is being discussed.
And I know I've been just as guilty of it as anyone
else. However, I often do have a re-think when
things are explained logically to me, as you've
done.
I hate it when things get turned into a "Left/Right"
divide because as we all know - who of us is really
one hundred percent on those sides - all of the time.
We all have our opinions, and they are capable of
changing as party policies change. Each of us supports
policies that make sense to us. Party politics to many
today are becoming less important than they used to be.
But here again, I could be wrong. I'm simply stating
what I notice among my friends and colleagues.

Anyway, Thank You again.

See you on another thread.

I did not start this thread to invite or wish for a burst bubble.
And not to share my small view it will come.
I with out the benefit of the knowledge my first links author has, think I know it must come, only when is unknown.
SM the Bill Shorten I knew would never be dumb enough to not know the public can see past his unions are clean junk ;.
I voted as did most rank and file for Albo, unions backed Billy.
Would like to highlight it was Bill who bought Rudd/Gillard down.
And with out action from him soon the ALP seems to be his next target!
Bill, like the Fonz from happy days has great difficulty even saying reform!
Post our loss in Tassy and South Australia he may learn to say it even if it is a whisper, doing it? hardly possible for the bloke!

The situation in China will drive our property market either up or down.
I attended a number of auctions last year and the Chinese buyers were
dominating the market.
My agent told me he could almost always know who the highest buyer
would be if the Chinese were there.
They were/are just doing anything they can to get their money out of China.
They have two concerns apparently, action by the Chinese government
tax & criminal depts and an economic bubble crash.

They are not too concerned about getting tennants, they may just let
their children or friends children use it while students here.

If the Chinese government takes up its threat to use the Australian
courts to get possession it could cause a panic.

The 'diversity-we-are-obliged-to-have-regardless-of-how-the-public- feel-about-it', combined with the offering of citizenship to foreign students as a reward for their propping up Australia's fourth largest industry, education aka giving foreign students places in our universities ahead of our own, will ensure that many Chinese and other foreigners buy houses. It would be very odd if they didn't.

However many who buy residential housing as 'investment' are young and they live at home or even rent cheaply in groups. The reason they buy for investment and not to live in themselves is that they are compelled by government emphasis on self superannuation to do so. Government has nagged and nagged that it will not be providing for its citizens in their autumn years.

Similarly, workers of all ages are compelled to invest to provide for themselves and in some cases for their children. Children are being required to spend far longer in education and may have interrupted earning later due to the proliferation of casual and P/T work. An unexpected and undesirable outcome of women's affirmative action is the abundance of middle class partners who block unemployed from jobs as they work out of boredom not necessity and to buy imported luxury goods (yay for those Audis) and international travel.

In a complex environment where ideology rather than good sense and evidence have driven policy, it is only to be expected that policians and their urgers would prefer to have a convenient whipping boy as represented by 'negative gearing' to blame instead. That certainly keeps the chattering mob occupied and away from things that shouldn't concern them. Feeding the chooks is easy, simple sensationalism in cut and paste form, please.

If the Labor-Greens Watermelons ever get in again, perish the thought, the push will be on to introduce Death Taxes, and to extend capital gains tax to residential homes. The kites were flown and new taxes are always the fix for over-spending by numerically challenged Labor and their lunar Greens Watermelon Party sidekicks. Maybe insulation for chook houses and a few lazy billions for more illegal migrants. It all costs money.